Friday, October 6, 2017

I've actually had this card completed for a while now. I've been keeping it on a shelf in my room (except for when Maria visited, in which case it was hidden) to inspire me for a while. Now that it's handed off to its intended recipient, I'm going to miss having it around!

My sister is a major (sometimes)foodie, so of course I had to make her a food-themed card. And what's better than ice cream? Nothing, that's what. So we've got a delicious ice cream card for her, with creamy vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and mint colors. The ice cream stamp set I used is from Hero Arts by Lia Griffith, "Oh Happy Day." I wasn't happy with the "drips" that came with that set, so I borrowed different ones from my Lawn Fawn "Lovable Legends" stamp set.

It's a top-folding card on a kraft base. A sweet pink polka dot ribbon wraps around and is topped with a circular birthday sentiment. The sentiment fit perfectly into the layered pierced circle die cuts! My sister Maria actually bought this birthday stamp set for me, it's by Ready Set Stamp. She's always been super supportive of my crafty hobbies.

I finished the ice cream panel with some splatter in matching colors as well as a few sequins. These ones were sent for free along with an order from Neat & Tangled and I can't say enough how much I loved them! I forgot about them until the card was complete, so they were added as a bit of an afterthought. But the pink matches perfectly, and the off-white ones had a green iridescence that matches the mint color so well. Happy coincidence! And they really finish off the card front.

Of course the message inside had to reference ice cream, it's from the "Birthday Messages" set by Simon Says Stamp.

And that's it! I have to say, this is by far my FAVORITE card yet, out of everything I've made. I hope Maria has a great birthday, and loves this card as much as I do!

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Here's my entry to this week's challenge, where I'm a special guest star stamper. The colors are Orange, Kraft, and White.

I did top-folding vertical "portrait" oriented cards the past three challenges, so this time I tried to change things up by going "landscape." I started with a white card base. Above that is orange paper, and on top of that is a kraft panel raised up on foam tape.

The kitty here is colored to match my dear Rusty Buttons, our beloved cat that passed away a few years back. When I found out the colors for this challenge, it made me think of him right away! He's raised up on foam tape to make him the star of the show.

The kraft panel is decorated with stamped orange cats, acorns, and oak leaves. I embellished with orange and white twine and a few white Nuvo drops. The hand-written sentiment is on a dimensional banner. Overall I am very pleased with the card. It's a little bittersweet, what with Rusty being gone, but I think it honors his memory.

Here is Princess Honey Bunny Gumdrops (a.k.a. "Lily"), my precious angel sent from the heavens and genuine Million Dollar Cat™, posing with this week's card. She was adopted from Camden County Animal Shelter, my FANTASTIC local animal shelter. We adopted her and Rusty during a "two-for-one" sale many years ago (2005!). She had to be spayed, so we had to pay for her, but they threw Rusty in for free to sweeten the deal! They have some high quality cats there, let me tell you.

Monday, October 2, 2017

My best friend Rachel lost her amazing cat Leela suddenly this September. As a card maker who got her start (and kind of specializes in) making sympathy cards, I really struggled to make one unique from the other designs I have already used. The more of these cards I make -- and unfortunately there has been many -- the more I struggle to honor each individual pet with a unique card.

Once I settled on a color scheme, everything started to come together. Leela was a black cat, so knew I wanted black to be one of the dominant colors on the card. But I also didn't want it looking too somber, so I ended up adding coral, amber, and a pistachio green to give it some vibrance.

I used Distress inks to add the colors around the edges of the top panel. Abandoned Coral and Cracked Pistachio are some of my favorite colors to use for cards, but I didn't want to use just those same colors again. I'd already used them as the dominant colors of another card I made with this sentiment stamp set.

I settled on adding yellow as kind of analogous color, to try and marry the orangey-toned coral and green colors. I found a cute floral washi tape to really connect everything together the way I wanted.

Here's a closer look at some of the ink blending going on in the corner. I'm addicted to stitched border dies.

Finally, I used a gold Wink of Stella pen to add some glitter to the paw prints I'd embossed on the heart die cut. I placed the die cut raised up on foam tape. I used a peg stamp to add the black cat to (theoretically) balance out the sentiment.

I didn't take a picture of the inside before I wrote my message, and I hate to share something so personal here. I deckled the edges of a sheet of Stardust White paper, which has some lovely subtle specks of color in it. I brought back in the same washi tape I'd used on the front of the card for some design unity. Rest in peace, Leela.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

I'm not going to lie, this was the most difficult card I've made so far for this challenge. I really struggled with the palette, and I thought for a while I wouldn't be able to pull anything together. That said, I'm pretty happy with the result. I used a kraft card base, an I incorporated the aqua color with layer
paper backgrounds. I stamped leaf patterns in orange (Memento Tangelo),
rust (Memento Potter's Clay) and green (Memento Bamboo Leaves).

I embellished with an orange ribbon pilfered from my sister's old ribbon stash, and some Nuvo drops in pale gold. The sentiment is popped up on a die cut. I jazzed it up with some stamping and clear Wink of Stella pen.

I spritzed the samped background layer with gold Shimmer Spray, which gives it a lovely warmth, but it was SUPER hard to photograph.

That concludes my third round of the Color Throwdown! Hopefully I'll be able to handle both the CTD and Inktober, wish me luck!

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Here's two special birthday cards I made recently, one for the young girl who leases my horse (Wrangler) and one for my grandpop! They both used the same sentiment stamp set (one of my favorites) and have similar color themes, so I thought I'd share them together.

Our barn's color theme is black/white/red/gray, so I based the card's colors off of that. Fortunately I had the perfect ribbon! I die cut the horseshoe from gray cardstock that I'd turned metallic
with Nuvo's embellishment mousse. I am addicted to that product! The
horse shoe was kind of a humorous inclusion for me, because Wrangler is
kind of notorious for losing shoes close to the end of his shoeing cycle. He
wears corrective shoes and can't be ridden barefoot.

Here's a better look at that horse shoe. I really loved the shine! I used Nuvo drops to add the dimensional white dots, which I used to tie the kraft colored panel back to the white card base color. The top panel was raised up on foam tape for some more dimension, but it's not super visible in these angles. Sorry!

Inside the card was a stamped die cut horse that I colored to look like Wrangler.

Next up is the card for my grandpa!

I stamped a plaid pattern onto red paper to make the background, my inspiration was thinking of old plaid work shirts. My grandpa is a practical, handy sort of guy, so I wanted to do something reminiscent of that.

I used a small plus-sign border die to add some interest to the panel with the sentiment in on, because it reminded my of the tops of Phillip's head screws. My grandpa is very handy! I sprayed the whole panel with a shimmer mist to give it a more fun, cheerful feeling. I wanted to make the card masculine but not too drab, so hopefully I was successful there.

Inside the card is a stamped red plaid heart, to tie into the patterned paper I used on the front. You can see the stamped heart peeking out from this angle.

The birthday sentiment panel is raised up on foam tape, and there's some baker's twine running perpendicular to it.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

I used a solid purple background, and on top of it is a panel featuring stamped hearts in the challenge colors. I added two vertical stripes of Washi tape, one is a lovely glittery orange and the other is green and white striped. The next layer is a yellow circle with pierced edges, and sitting atop that is the gold embossed sentiment, popped up on foam tape!

This week's colors were kind of challenging for me, but I think this card came out really fun! This is only my second week participating, and it was a blast.

Here's some fan mail that I send out recently to Emy, the author of a fantastic webcomic called Trying Human. When I got the idea for a UFO abduction slider card, I knew just who to send it to. The little cow is on a track, and if you tilt the card or push him, he'll slide up and down the tractor beam. I created the spacey background panel on the card using Distress inks, and then I scanned and laser printed copies to die cut from, as this was my first slider card and I was afraid to mess up the original work.

I even embellished the envelope and picked out a special stamp to match the space theme.

The ATC features fanart of two of her characters, Hue and Dog. Just before I sent it out, I added glitter to the two big hearts in the background with a Wink of Stella pen.

Emy was kind enough to send me a reply letter that included a fantastic original drawing, as well!